How often have you heard that you should “listen to your donors” and nodded along in agreement?  But how often have you actually sat down to implement a system to continually listen to donors in a structured way and gain new insights?  Make no mistake: getting to know your donors is a strategy with high returns. For-profit companies are investing in audience research like never before. They're getting insights from the very same people who will buy their product or service. And you can do...

The offer is one of the most foundational—yet most misunderstood—tools in fundraising. Get it wrong, and your fundraising can flop. Get it right, and watch the response rate go up. So what is an offer anyway? It’s the thing you're asking donors to help make happen. The outcome. The ultra-specific and tangible difference their gift can make. And that doesn't just apply to direct response fundraising. Major donor visits? There's usually an offer at some point. Events? Just a vehicle to deliver...

How do you achieve predictable fundraising success?  Well, nobody can predict how much money you’re going to raise. But if you follow the 5 steps of the fundraising flywheel consistently—over time— your revenue will grow.  And so will your career as a leader and fundraiser!  So today we’ll walk through each of the 5 parts of the fundraising flywheel in detail.  They are: ListenEngageAskCelebrate Report Master these 5 steps, and you will raise more money—consistently.  Because you’ll have made...

Is it time we ditch the marketing funnel and replace it with a flywheel? Today we’re introducing the concept of the Fundraising Flywheel—a 5-step framework to help donors become an important part of the team and improve your fundraising.  The flywheel is simply our way of codifying the fundamentals of fundraising done well: ListenEngageAskCelebrate Report A flywheel is like a big, heavy wheel that helps things keep moving. It's like a toy top that you spin. Once you get it spinning, it keeps...

Welcome to the first ever BG Live—a live recording of the podcast on Zoom that anyone can join. To make sure you're invited to future BG Lives, make sure to sign up for our email newsletter at www.buildgood.com. --- You probably know charity: water to be an admired innovator in the fundraising world.  They do things so wonderfully different.  And they've set the gold standard for digital fundraising and online engagement.  But in order to keep growing and reaching new audiences, the...

On today's podcast, we're revising the best advice and proven practices on how to get more gifts in wills. For many of your donors, the gift they leave in their will might the largest gift they ever make to your charity. Not only that, but research has shown that donors who choose to leave a gift in their will, often times also end up increasing their giving while they're still alive.  So in today's rewind, we're going back to some key insights our guests have shared on this podcast when it...

Today we're taking a look back at the best practical advice on monthly giving our guests have shared on the podcast.  From what it takes to build a flagship monthly giving product, to tactical advice on upgrading monthly gifts, to how to resource a strong monthly giving program—we're revisiting "can't miss" content that'll help you build your monthly giving program. Featuring conversations with Vik Harrison (charity: water), Harvey McKinnon and Erica Erica Waasdorp. --- ➡️  Join our FREE...

Here’s a common pain point for many nonprofit CEOs and fundraising leaders: we’re spending too much time on the operations of the shop, and not enough time connecting with donors. There is a way to reclaim some of that time. But it’s not sexy. It’s not glamorous. It’s kind of a pain to implement at first. It’s for sure never a priority. But it will—in the long term—make your life and your work so much more effective. And that’s standardizing our operations with a series of SOPs,...

Do you shy away from building custom online experiences and automations because you think you need to hire a developer or know how to code? The good news is there are more and more completely no-code solutions available to nonprofits to actually build custom workflows and improve the donor experience.  You don’t need to be a developer in order to build something that will improve your efficiency and make the giving experience more enjoyable for your donors. In fact, today you'll hear from a...

You’ve often heard us talk on this podcast about getting closer to your donors and leading them toward making their best gift for your organization—a gift that is meaningful to them and increases their own sense of wellbeing. But how do you move beyond fundraising communications to building personal, 1:1 relationships? On today’s show, we’re talking to Michael Dixon from Responsive Fundraising about a framework that will help you think about how to deepen the relationship with your donors...

There’s no way around it: our world is a mess. Giving has levelled off after a season of overwhelming generosity. We’re facing record inflation. The housing market is unpredictable. The stock market is a mess. Supply chains are broken.  Society seems to be more polarized than ever before. And the ongoing war in Ukraine is ever-present in the public consciousness.  Regardless of how serious you may think things are, make no mistake: most people are paying more at the cash register when...

For many of us who grew up with the internet, email marketing seems like a fairly established medium.  But compared to most other forms of marketing and fundraising, email is still a relatively new format.  And it continues to change. So for today’s episode, we sat down with a fellow Canadian fundraising agency founder to look back at the last decade of sending emails for charities. Ben Johnson founded Frontier Marketing in 2010 when, before "remote work" existed, he moved his family from...

What does a person get when they make a gift to charity?  Most of the time, they’re not buying a product or service. They’re buying a story about the kind of person they are. And what they get in return is the way you treat them…and communicate with them…and update them.   So, isn’t it our duty to put a lot of thought and care into our donor communications?  Don’t we owe it to our community of supporters—and the people we serve—to draw people closer to the work and treat them like they’re...

If you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you know intuitively that the donor experience is more important than just getting the gift.  Because a great experience leads to greater commitment, and loyalty and satisfaction…and yes, money in the long term.  But before you can improve the donor experience—and increase supporter satisfaction—you need to know how to measure it in the first place.   And we’re not talking about an annual donor survey.  Today’s guest is going to share the...

Have you ever walked into a meeting with a prospective funder feeling nervous?  Maybe you weren't sure how to lead the conversation. Maybe you felt a power imbalance. Or maybe you felt like you were there to beg for money, rather than being there as an equal partner or peer. If you've been there, today's episode is for you. Meet Mallory Erickson. Her mission is to help people like you fundraise more from the right donors WITHOUT hounding people for money. Without feeling like you’re...

Have you heard of philanthropic psychology….or phil psych for short?  It’s the science behind fundraising that first and foremost cares about stewarding the love that is at the core of philanthropy.  So instead of being focused on growing revenue from your donors, it’s focused on growing your donors' human capacity to love others—as well as themselves.  And when you help people grow their love for others and themselves, well...the money follows. And you end up raising a lot more. Today on...

How important is your organization's brand when it comes to the success of your fundraising? How about your culture?  Today’s guests have a strong point of view: they’re out to prove that how a nonprofit brand operates on the inside is more important than how it looks on the outside.  Mark Miller and Ted Vaughn have led nearly 100 rebrands for purpose-driven organizations with their team at Historic Agency.  Now they’ve written a book called "Culture Built My Brand: The Secret to Winning...

Have you ever run a phonathon?  They're a tried-and-true way of engaging donors and raising money, especially for higher education institutions. However, running a successful phonathon in-house is no easy task. That's why on this weeks' show, we're talking to an OG phonathon strategist, Clinton Crow from LEAD Philanthropy.  Clinton signed up to make phone calls at Alma Matter College when he was a student—and was named the school’s top student caller four years in a row.  He’s never...

Would you like to acquire,  keep and upgrade new donors online? And do it all using marketing automation?  It's possible—by building a digital fundraising factory. And it's not as complicated as you might think. Today on the show, we're talking to Dutch fundraising expert Ewald Verhoog on how to build a digital revenue engine from the ground up.  Ewald is the author of "The almost definitive book about DIGITAL FUNDRAISING', the step by step method to double your individual income." The...

Is your nonprofit profitable? Do you plan to run a surplus every year? When you cost out projects for funders or donors, do you include a profit margin? If that sounds like something you would like to do, but struggle to do, today's episode is for you. Because we’re not talking about generating more revenue—we’re talking about how to keep more of your revenue, using Profit First. Simply put, Profit First is an easy method of distributing your income into different bank accounts that are...

Monthly donors...we all want more of them! Today we're going to hear how Greenpeace Canada uses a simple email strategy to grow monthly giving. And the good news is: you can do this, too! Greenpeace Canada focuses on using open and honest emails as a core strategy to ask people who have signed petitions to consider becoming a monthly donor. And in just two years, they've grown monthly giving by over 330%, which is amazing. To tell us how they did it, we're talking to Miriam Wilson, who leads...

Your offer is the single most important thing that makes a difference in your fundraising. It's how you move donors toward greater generosity and inspire them to give.  But not all fundraising offers are created equal. Many fundraisers struggle to create compelling offers for their causes because they don’t provide urgent and tangible services like food and water and medical care. Their beneficiaries are not kittens or children or an endangered species. The truth is: it is harder to...

On the eve of the new year 2022, there’s no mistaking that the world has changed—and that includes fundraising.  The role of charity and public society has certainly changed, but so have the expectations of donors.  Today, we invite a few smart fundraisers to share their prediction about what will matter most in fundraising in 2022.  Today we will be joined by: [02:41] - Dan Sonners, VP of Conrad Direct  [10:50  ] - Becky Endicott, Co-Founder and Chief Storyteller at We Are for Good [19:57]...

Few nonprofits are using the phone to talk to their donors and raise funds. It might seem old school. It takes time, and it can feel awkward to call somebody up on the phone and ask for their support.  But phone fundraising can be a very effective tool to not only raise funds, but also deepen your connection with your donors. And get to know them for who they are. Today is a masterclass on how to structure a call and how to write a phone script that you can use to guide a donor toward making...

Good fundraisers know that stories work better than statistics, that characters work better than calculations and that whoever tells the best story wins.  Still, we sometimes neglect the donor's personal story...the story they are writing with their life. And if we start to understand that story, and those characters, it might lead to transformation gifts.  But how do you advance your donor's hero story? What messages will resonate?  Today, we are talking to Dr. Russell James, about how to...